“While I admire the enthusiasm of the developers we must remember that it is land owned by the community, and without local support it is impossible to justify locking future generations out of the space which was designated for public recreation and constant use,” he said.

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But, standing on the land in question on Friday, Mr Ross said while Mr Wyatt’s reasoning was valid, he believed the development would not have denied people access to the area.

An artist's impression of the proposed wave park. Credit:Urbnsurf

Thursday’s announcement is a major barrier for the project, more than two years in the making. A development application to the City of Melville was imminent, Mr Ross said, pointing out that across the same timeframe a similar park had been successfully developed in Melbourne.

“In the same time period that we’ve been progressing this particular opportunity to get our DA in, we’ve been able to design, develop and almost open our project in Melbourne,” he said.

“So we’re only six weeks away from first waves there, and we encourage everyone in Perth to come and surf with us in Melbourne and come and experience what could have been here.”

While the company had canvassed dozens of alternative sites, Mr Ross said the Alfred Cove location was “head and shoulders above” the rest, largely due to its central location.

The government has expressed support for the park to be developed somewhere else in Perth, and Mr Ross is due to speak with Mr Wyatt on the topic in coming weeks.

Dawesville MLA Zak Kirkup proposed the park be built in Mandurah, but Mr Ross said the southern city didn’t have the population to support the project.

But he was resolute the park would still have a home in Perth.

“If it’s not at this site, well it has to be somewhere else,” he said. “There’s more than 80,000 surfers in the Perth community, we have great beaches, we have terrible surf.

“There’s more surfers than people that play cricket ... there’s 400 cricket ovals in Perth, but not one dedicated surfing facility.”

Mr Ross acknowledged the opposition from local community groups to the wave park – built on, he claimed, a number of untruths – but said a huge number of supporters wanted it to go ahead.

“Perth is a unique place, it has some unique aspects to it,” Mr Ross said.

“We seem to be hamstrung a little bit here in Perth with very vocal local minority groups that then sort of curtail things and put pressure back on government.

“I think there needs to be ... some more courage perhaps shown in the face of some of that opposition to keep trying to push through opportunities for Perth.”

As Mr Ross was fronting media, that community opposition was on full show at the nearby Melville Bowling Club.

The club has put up banners voicing its objection to the park, as well as Melville Mayor Russell Aubrey, amid an ongoing battle to stop eviction from its Canning Highway location.

Mr Ross said the site had been chosen back in 2016, after the City of Melville had established plans to merge the Melville Bowling Club and Mt Pleasant Bowling Club down the road to neighbouring Tompkins Park in a shared facility.

The plans were turned on their head in 2018 when the Melville Bowling Club officially changed its position against the move.

Club president Tim Smith on Thursday told WAtoday he was “very pleased” with Mr Wyatt’s announcement and looked forward to sitting down with the City of Melville in the wake of the news.

The Melville Bowling Club is fighting eviction from its current location to a neighbouring precinct. Credit:Cameron Myles

Melville acting chief executive Mick McCarthy noted there was still a current lease agreement in place between the City and Urbnsurf and said an upcoming meeting would address legal obligations to be considered and resolved.

“The City acknowledges there has been a high level of public interest in this project and we assure our community that we are now working to identify the next steps, which will include a wider review of our current leasing arrangements with sporting clubs and the scope of the Tompkins Park redevelopment project as it stands today,” he said.

“In line with the Council-adopted Neighbourhood Development - Community Hub Policy, the City remains committed to supporting the long term sustainability and viability of our sporting clubs and ensuring positive social and economic outcomes for our ratepayers.”

Mr Ross remained hopeful another location could be found for the project, which he had tipped to create about 300 full-time construction jobs and 50 full-time jobs at the park after opening, most of which he said would have gone to young people.

Had everything proceeded as planned, construction could have begun as early as next year, Mr Ross said.

“We’d hope that given the experience that we’ve had, that the next site that we try to adopt, the government will be working hard with us to remove any red tape that we might need to pass,” he said.